Thrice
by TheRegnant
Summary: The sun rose and set a thousand times over the little pride, for its light lived in their hair. A collection of anecdotes set in the universe of Rule of Three.
1. Possess

"You shouldn't let him touch you like that in front of me," he snarls, his rough right hand grasping for her ring finger beneath the blazing haze of blankets in the perfect cloak of their darkness. He spins the gold band latched around it in idle circles in paces that match the ones he draws on her bare stomach with his other hand. His eyes finally meet hers as two glances glint together in the firelight. "You know it only makes me want to kill him... Or show him whose you really are."

Her eyebrow arches like a ray of sunlight parting the curtain of darkness, an arc of molten gold painting the face that mirrors his own. "Whose I really am?" Arms reach over for him in earnest, pulling him back on top of her with a faint force. Thighs, still sticky from their coupling just some score breaths ago, amble apart lazily for brother to find his comfort in between, and halves align together as every jagged edge that might scrape or tear at any other turns flesh and makes simple sense. Supple lips, and then sharp teeth, meet with the lobe of his ear as her words escape them, rushing directly into the center of his field of hearing. "You mean _mine_?"

She can't see it, only feel it, when he smiles against her cheek at the word, but it's everything, the honeyed happiness of a featherlight kiss. "No. _Mine_."

She breathes in deeply, spices and lavender and cinnamon and sweat and their collective musks from moments before. She lets the air out slowly, repeats the motion, savoring the feeling of his skin directly against hers as their chests stir and move in perfect time together, and the hearts underneath, too. She memorizes every small dip and valley, every scar, be it from sword or from she, every little goose bump, calming now under the security of down and silk and velvet. Not a sordid layer dares to soil the moment, only to envelop the heavenly twins.

Her ringed hand moves into the mellowed caramel of his hair. Flames flicker in the shine of their union. She strokes gingerly, gently as he always loves after they are joined at the hips, bringing puzzle pieces back together after bites and jerks and slaps and blood, and they laugh together into each other's mouths as a single strand catches along the gold adorning her finger as she adores him. The halo of his hair captures the representation of love around her hand, and once it has spun three times around the hair, she catches it, fixes them both up. She bites her lip.

She loves him. She can't help it, and he needs her to show it, and it has always been this way. It will always be this way.

"Yours," she murmurs in agreement. She savors the gasp at brother's lips even as it prickles her skin. His surprise seems to crystallize and hang in the air between them for a moment; it is oddly cold for autumn this year. She almost never says it, but she knows that, just now, this is something that he needs to hear.

He has become as the green envy of his eyes as of late, too preoccupied with how things should be to see how they are. Jaime is the one in her bed, lavished between thighs blessed with silver and gold. He is the one spinning her ring between his fingers, not anyone else, not ever, not even the man that put it there. No matter how her husband touches her, yes, even in front of anyone, even in front of _him_ , he is the only one that makes her shiver and sigh as their blood sings in time together. He is the only one that will trace the marks that signify the beginnings of life on the expanses of her skin. Were he to venture lower, only his fingers would wander back inside of her seeking the love they made, wanting a sweet morsel to remind him of the past few moments. Only he would taste the liquor of her, their, sex on his lips, and let her taste it just the same.

It would never be the same with anyone else, and she wouldn't desire that, even if it could. He had to see that. Brother would be the one to hold and kiss their three babes come next week at their eldest's eighth nameday. He would be the one to hold him up to blow out the flickering gold of the candles upon red velvet cake adorned with a great scripted J in gold, candles fashioned of wax blue as the pool waters next to them would be. He is the one who has taken her, loved her, claimed her, in the wake of the pawing of a wretched man at her figure, in the wreckage of filthy rage.

Try as he might, no man but sweet brother will ever possess her, not for a moment.

His hands fly to meet her face as lips and teeth gamble lower at the veldt of skin beneath him, seeking another drag of their spice.

" _Ours_."


	2. Father

His sweet dream lifts away slowly. Brother stills with practiced ease, slowing his breathing, only moving his hand over to feel for her. He knows not to disturb her, how much she would hate that, especially now that her little prince steals her slumber more often than not.

He only opens his eyes when fingers find nothing but silk and space on the daybed next to him. Through breathing as shallow as he can stand, his nose finds sour milk first amongst the powder and lavender hazing the dry heat of the nursery.

She always wants to look at him. Even in the late afternoon, while daylight and opportunity still splay and hang halfway in the air, there's no brightness she prefers better than the sun that lives in her, _their_ , boy's hair.

From here, though, the point of view is a bit different. Sunlight spills over sister's shoulders where the straps of her bralette should be. Her immaculate skin flows divinely uninterrupted, neck to waist, save for their son's face at her breast. He watches, still scarcely breathing, as she smiles down at the boy, sighs in contentment as he grows quiet, winces at brushes of little cub's budding teeth.

The coos spiling from her mouth as she speaks to him are almost as high-pitched as the infant's own. "Better?" Of course Joffrey can't answer her, not with words, but he and his Mother never need them. He only belly laughs, her favorite soothing sound, Jaime knows.

"Come now," she murmurs to him as she traipses back to the daybed where brother waits, her eyes never leaving the bundled babe's face. "Father is sleeping, you and I should do the same."

It's only when she says that, " _Father_ ," that Jaime dares to make a sound. The gasp escaping his lips draws her attention. She never says it, not even when she can, not even at times like this. Their eyes meet finally, and little Joffrey's great green eyes are on his uncle, _his father_ , too. She lets out a breath, almost a laugh, and it seems so heavy, almost as if it had been holding her to the ground, even though Jaime knows that _he_ is. Their little pride, all three together now, is what keeps sister sane, safe, even embedded in the mania that is her life. Jaime clasps at her daintly ankle with his right hand, just as it was when they were born. His other hand wraps with hers around their son, and he knows that this, the way it always will be from now on, is preferable, no matter how complicated it might be.

When their eyes meet again, the corner of her mouth curls into the smallest of smiles, the sort that she might flash at him amongst others as a lark, the sort that no one else might notice from across a crowded room.

It is a secret that only the two know.


	3. Golden

_The Lannister sigil is a golden lion on a crimson field._

In the times of the true monarchy, when the name Targaryen had meant something, millions of men had worn and carried him into battle with them, to live, to die, to live on in the songs even if they did die.

There would be no songs for her little lion. He had found his crimson field, but his gold had never glimmered. At best, it was invisible.

"I wish you wouldn't do this."

Ebony curls whip like the tails of a tawse at alabaster flesh as she turns to face him. "What?"

He says nothing, only looks her up and down and makes a hand gesture. Her eyes meet the vanity mirror to the side of them. He gleams next to her, gold and sea glass, like the selfsame house sigil. She is a ghost, bone and kohl. They are the Warrior and the Stranger, both rushing into battle to take life, but only one to give it. She is an anathema, a parasite, leeching from his light just to survive.

"You don't think I'm beautiful this way?"

That idea stings. Robert himself had immediately commented that the hair color did not suit her, made her look dead, _like our son,_ shirking the thought of what an effort, a concession, it was in the first place. He never stops flapping his wine-stained lips about how much he hates her family with their pretentious golden hair.

He scorns her now that she could not bare him a stag, let alone a wolf pup. The last bit is unspoken, if obvious. The snow of her skin will never be enough to satisfy his thirst for the chill of the North.

"You are beautiful," he disagrees into her neck, wrapping his fingers around it, "but you are not you."

His teeth seem to tear the breath from her windpipe. She stays quiet, enraptured.

"I don't care what he prefers, and I don't care what he calls you. You're better than any of it." His maw kneads her skin, reddening the flesh, pouring blush and breath back into her. "We are." The vibrations of his voice travel to places that she has not let his hands grace since she bled out their cub. "Together." She fears the pain of losing another, that the Seven might take every babe he gets on her, before they draw breath or otherwise. _I'm not sure which would be worse._

She knows that he is right. Hates, relishes, loves, reviles it; she wishes that the rest of the world might agree.

"It doesn't matter what you do, love," he is murmuring now. "It doesn't matter how hard you try. It doesn't matter if you change, if you're faithful to him. He will not return these courtesies to you." The words have been reverent, almost seductive, up to this point, but she can feel ardor and ache behind them now. "He doesn't deserve you. Sometimes, I don't even think I do." Fingers weave between inky strands, crowning the golden roots adorning her head with adoration. "But _this_ is what we are." The words are punctuated with a harsh tug and a soothing stroke of the hair, only the bits of molten gold that pour from the crown of her head, shattering the illusion of darkness in waves of sporadic depth. " _This_ is what I love." His thumb traces the greatest prominence of her throat, lavishing it even against the silence. "This is you, Cersei."

Sound does leave her lips at that. It's almost a laugh.

"Cersei," he adulates, a kiss, a lick, a nip, heat and slickness and pain penetrating her skin, and then the word comes, a sigh, a breath, a little laugh, once, twice, ten times, again and again and again. "Cersei." Fingers slide ever lower as sweet lips enthrone the name like an exaltation into her skin. "My Cersei." They meet with collarbones and the expanse of skin below, breasts still tender and engorged with milk that should be sating the babe it is, was, meant for. "My beautiful Cersei. My sweet sister." Hands cup a flattening belly bare of the marks that should silver and jolt the surface. It should be swelling, burgeoning, living, but there is only skin. The cells live in their own way, thrive and drink and slough and die, but this is not that.

"I will say it a thousand times until you know that it is a more beautiful name than hers."

She does not stop him this time. She lets him love her as she should have weeks ago, and nine months later, a little lion cub comes forth, shining bright with pride atop the field of blood and pain this time.

The burden of death is stripped away, and the pride find their sun once again.


End file.
